"Science and reason are discomforting precisely because they have been carefully devised to allow nature to speak to us and to divulge its secrets, quite independently of what we would prefer to hear. Once we realize this, and we thus become willing to accept unpleasant but validated truths in place of comforting myths, we are far better prepared to recognize, address, and perchance solve, the myriad of problems presented to us by a complex civilization and a threatened natural estate. It is true that technology, applied without reasonable foresight or moral constraint, has brought us to our current environmental peril. But organized, cumulative and institutional reason - which is to say, science - is our best way out."